SaaS startup Shopstory has picked up €2.2 million for its tool that works as a marketing assistant for online retailers. The Vienna-based company is now planning to expand.
Marketing teams behind ecommerce brands have some pretty big opponents to come up against. With giants like Amazon taking up so much space, and having the budget and resources to keep it that way, getting visibility and new customers on the internet can be an uphill battle.
For smaller online retailers, who often don’t have a dedicated marketing team or budget, it’s even more of a challenge and the world of Google Ads and SEO can be an overwhelming realm to take on.
Aiming to make it simple by providing software that does the hard work, Shopstory has just raised €2.2 million to shake up ecommerce with innovative martech.
Funding details
The fresh €2.2 million funding round was led by tecnet equity, Startup300 and business angels Patrick Pöschl (CoFounder of Scalable Capital) and Hansi Hansmann. Also participating in the financing round is the Coinpanion founding team including CEO Alexander Valtingojer.
It comes just after the startup spent the summer rebranding – it was previously known as boomerank and reflects a big boost for a new strategy. The capital will be used primarily to further develop the software in the area of business intelligence and to drive geographic expansion.
Founder and CEO Sebastian Schwelle said: “It has always been our goal to offer all online shops a fair chance to participate in eCommerce sales. That’s why we are extremely happy to continue working on our vision with the support of our investors who are providing know-how and capital. With Shopstory, we want to get the maximum for our customers in the future through targeted business insights and give them the competitiveness and visibility they deserve. Hence the name ‘Shopstory’ – because no shop can tell its story if no one is listening.”
Intelligent marketing assistant
Founded in 2020 by Sebastian Schwelle, Robert Böhm and Roman Schweiger, Shopstory operates on the vision of creating an ecommerce market that is more transparent and fair. Its SaaS solution acts like an intelligent performance marketing assistant for online retailers, using AI to help brands increase sales, profitability, visibility and overall competitiveness.
The software focuses on improving online performance, regardless of whether the company only has rudimentary marketing know-how or if it even has an in-house performance marketing manager. It does this by providing targeted support in the areas of search engine optimization and search engine advertising (e.g. Google Ads).
The tool also monitors competitors, provides input for campaigns and blog posts, automates keyword research, and provides shop owners with intuitive performance reports. The success of The software can be measured in concrete numbers: in a currently very challenging ecommerce market environment with an overall decline of over 40% in the first half of 2022, Shopstory customers, on the other hand, were able to increase their return-on-advertising-spend (ROAS) by over 20%.
Business Angel Hansi Hansmann added: “The team around Shopstory keeps its software in line with what’s going on in the market, which makes it innovative and future-proof. A concrete vision, commitment and perseverance are important factors in making a company successful. I clearly see these qualities in Shopstory, which is why I look positively to the future and look forward to further cooperation.”
